Archive for category: Exercises

About this resource

This exercise not only gives your student practice at alternate picking, but it also helps with their co-ordination between both hands as well as giving them a bit of scales practice. The exercise is effective because the student will be able to immediately hear if their picking is even slightly out of sync with their fretting hand. The exercise is useful for all guitarists so you can give it to beginner students or even your most advanced students.

About this resource

This exercise will develop your student's control over bends as well as their finger strength. The exercises require the student to perform a bend then hold it in position while they play a note on an adjacent string before picking the bend note again and releasing it. This requires great strength and control as even the slightest movement will push the bend out of tune.

Various positions are given to force the student to use different fingers to perform and support the bend. This is a great exercise for blues guitarists but very useful for any style.

About this resource

The goal of this exercise is to give your student practice at targeting the correct pitch for whole tone bends. The exercises are designed to make it as easy as possible for the student to quickly hear if they performed the bend correctly. Eventually the student will be able to perform the bends without needing to listen to the reference pitch at all.

Once you have gone over the basic technique we recommend using this exercise for the student to practice bends outside of lessons. It is also recommended that the student practice XB-01 first which focuses on half tone bends.

About this resource

This exercise will teach your student to build a 'mental map' of major triads across the fretboard on the D, A & E strings. We recommend completing exercises XR-01, XR-02 & XR-03 before this exercise.

The benefits your student will receive from this exercise include:

• Greater confidence with using the entire fretboard
• Deeper understanding of chords and intervals
• A 'memory map' of triads and inversions all over the fretboard

This exercise is recommended for intermediate-advanced students.

About this resource

This exercise will teach your student to build a 'mental map' of major triads across the fretboard on the B, G & D strings. We recommend completing XR-01 before giving your student this exercise.

The benefits your student will receive from this exercise include:

• Greater confidence with using the entire fretboard
• Deeper understanding of chords and intervals
• A 'memory map' of triads and inversions all over the fretboard

This exercise is recommended for intermediate-advanced students.